Was honored and inspired by the community of Republic, WA today. Todd and I travelled to this incredibly beautiful northwest community to honor the Class of 2013 as they received their diplomas and headed out into the real world. Republic is a special place – it might be small, but it is big on the values that built this great country. Republic exemplifies what makes America great – and it was an honor to thank them for it. To the Tigers of 2013 – thank you again for inviting me and inspiring me. Always remember your roots and never forget that kids from small schools can do big things. Our republic’s future is up to you!

A big thank you to the wonderful flight attendants and crew on our US Airways flight today from Indianapolis who gave heartfelt shout-outs over the intercom to our military and to veterans who’ve sacrificed so much for our freedom. The airlines offered our service members onboard free food and asked us all to pass along a special thank you to those we know in the service. It was so encouraging to see open and genuine respect for our men and women in uniform who so richly deserve the respect and honor of a grateful nation.

Tomorrow’s hearings on Benghazi will define the Obama presidency if the truth is finally allowed to be told. I encourage everyone to tune in and hear the revelations that are long overdue. We’ll also see whether the president’s reliable lapdog cheerleaders in the media will continue to cover up for him and in so doing disgrace their profession. The following link is to something I posted way back on October 25th of last year asking questions that we should have had answers to long ago.

Sarah PalinThere are many questions about the Benghazi attack that Americans deserve answers to. It’s been too long an “investigation” and too tragic for the families of lost loved ones for the White House and its friends in the media to ignore these questions: – When and why did the YouTube trailer of the anti-Muhammad movie surface as any kind of credible reason for the attack? – Where is the proof that that video was linked to Benghazi? It’s a weak excuse to claim some supposed rumored link between Benghazi and the attacks on our embassy in Cairo. Benghazi was very different. “Spontaneous” protestors don’t come armed with rocket-propelled grenades. – What was the President’s response to the previous Benghazi embassy attacks in April and June? Why did officials ignore the requests for beefed up security to protect Americans after these attacks? – Why did the Obama Administration assume a YouTube video was the reason for the Benghazi attack but not all the evidence to the contrary from the postings and emails that circulated that night in real time as the attack took place and Americans were being killed? And why weren’t those emails disclosed until this week? – Why did the Obama administration spend our tax dollars to make and air television ads that ran in the Middle East apologizing for the YouTube video when they had so much credible evidence that it was nothing but a red herring? – How much did President Obama know about this? In an interview he gave to CBS News on September 12, President Obama alluded to the fact that the Benghazi attack was not—as his U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice and other officials were characterizing it—a “spontaneous” protest triggered by the Cairo embassy attack and the video. He told CBS News in that interview, “my suspicion is that there are folks involved in [the Benghazi attack] who were looking to target Americans from the start.” If he suspected this then why did he allow his administration to continue blaming the attack on the YouTube video? And why didn’t CBS News call him out on this when his comments in their interview with him, which they didn’t air until a month later, belie the administration’s YouTube narrative? Someone in the media must demand answers. Until the media does its job to give us the Who What Where When and Why of this cover-up, there will be even less trust for this “cornerstone of our democracy” – if less trust and respect for the media is even possible today. We sincerely want to be able to trust the media. We need to be able to trust them. Their job is so important, and we appreciate all the good journalists in America. Our troops fight to protect all our freedoms including the freedom of the press. – Sarah Palin

How can we be divided on new taxes? In this horribly weak economy with an over-reaching, over-spending, anti-small-business government continually making the wrong decisions, Republicans can't even stay committed to "No New Taxes"?

Please step away from your Washington, DC bubble and get back in touch with the hard working people who sent you there. Read the planks in our party's platform and then read our lips. Learn from history or face repeating it: NO NEW TAXES.

I love inspirational people like my sister Heather! For her 50th birthday she just decided she’d up and run a marathon thousands of miles away in New Orleans after such limited time and even more limited training opportunities in freezing cold snow-covered Alaska all this long, long winter. Heather works full-time with children with special needs in the Anchorage School District, plus she works weekends in a dental office and conducts tours for Alaska Wildberry Tours, in addition to helping at the family-owned business, Bruce’s Muldoon Chevron gas station. And she and her husband raise three busy kids! Heather helps out with all the nieces and nephews (thank you for stepping in so often for Todd and me, Heather!), too. She helps answer my mail and fends off pesky reporters who unfortunately bug her to try to get to me to do more of their bugging.

So, Heather decided to fly to New Orleans by herself. She hasn’t traveled like that since college. She went to the race with no support. I was ticked at her that she was missing the birthday party we were throwing for her that weekend (well, it was a combined party to include the annual after-Iron Dog celebration for Todd, plus her birthday… we’re always killing a few birds with one stone), but I forgave her because when she texted me her plan she was already on her way to the airport, so there was no backing out. She’s the one who bakes the magical homemade chocolate cakes for our parties, but we forgave her for the missing magic at the party anyway.

We all texted her after the race.

“I did ok,” she humbly offered. “Hurt like heck, naturally, died a thousand deaths, but it was decent, I guess. Glad I did it.”

We congratulated her and left it at that. Then my sister Molly went over to Heather’s house today and sees Heather’s plaque from the New Orleans Rock ‘n Roll marathon for her OUTSTANDING 26.2 mile performance! She ran a 3:42:27 and placed second in her age group! (She’d forgotten to mention all that!) Heather’s always been a great athlete, and we all share a love of running, hiking, streaming sweat through Bikram, and anything active outdoors, but none of us can keep up with her! (She can do three sets of push ups, 70 at a time, and finish with an additional 30; BOY push ups! I crumble at the thought.) She’s truly an inspiration. And so humble…

But the coolest thing about all this today, besides finally finding out her kick-butt race time, was re-reading her most recent group text to the family. It wasn’t about her fitness prowess, or how busy she is, or her overcoming obstacles that others use as excuses to avoid getting outside and enjoying all that our beautiful states have to offer. It wasn’t about her being able to qualify for the Boston Marathon (which we hope she’ll run someday, just like our dad did back in the 80′s!) Instead, Heather texted a proud mom’s moment.

Her son, our nephew, has autism. Karcher will always add another dimension and perspective to the family’s life. The road has not been easy and may never get any easier. But we’ve all said Karcher is our red-headed angel that God knew to place with Kurt and Heather because they’re gifted enough to handle all He allows. The Bruces are amazing. (And Heather will want to wring my neck for bragging about her. Or she’ll arm wrestle me into oblivion to teach me a lesson.)

Heather’s text today explained that she doesn’t have the typical Facebook page to brag about her kids like so many do, but she wanted to share a recent wonderful accomplishment — not her own, but her son’s.

Karcher will be graduated from East High School next month in the Top 10% of all students! He was given a University of Alaska Scholars Award, and he also won an “Excellence at East” award for his amazing progress through such challenging high school years, especially through the relentlessly and sometimes inexplicable difficult social situations a child with obvious challenges must endure. His teacher and the principal signed the award certificate. It encouraged Karcher to reach for the stars and always be proud to be an East High Thunderbird! Native tradition tells us that the thunderbird represents an indomitable spirit. That describes Karch.

CNN: it’s no wonder your ratings still aren’t matching competitors. American viewers are smarter than you assume, and we simply want truth in reporting.

Please see the article linked below. Wolf Blitzer’s recent coverage of this story really was blisteringly dishonest. First, because he didn’t reach out to me or the SarahPAC staff for rebuttal. Second, because he failed to disclose the anti-tea party associations of the “architect” of this story whose organization is a competitor of my efforts to advance the candidacies of genuine grassroots conservatives – not those handpicked by the permanent political class. As the article explains, in my recent CPAC speech I gulped and denounced the consultants who engage in campaign hopping and have made a racket out of multi-million dollar failures each election cycle for themselves and their cronies. What a shame CNN continues to plug away in a floundering direction with reports like this. The shame is that they employ some top-notch reporters who no doubt believe in truth in journalism, but examples like this diminish the good reporters’ good efforts.

As a side note, I find it interesting that CNN recently disclosed that their old “Crossfire” show might hit their airwaves again. Wasn’t CNN among those who issued blistering criticism about the use of a “crossfire” icon in 2010 to represent political districts we wished to see represented by commonsense conservatives? CNN, among others, implied that using a “crossfire” icon (which was a tactic first employed by Democrats to illustrate political maps of districts they “targeted” to win) was inciting violence.

I say it IS time we furlough the political consultants, the permanent political class, and the politicos who’ve been part of the problem that got us into this mess. Politicians, listen to your mother… or at least listen to these moms…

“I encourage others to step out in faith, jump out of the comfort zone, and broaden our reach as believers in American exceptionalism. That means broadening our audience. I’m taking my own advice here as I free up opportunities to share more broadly the message of the beauty of freedom and the imperative of defending our republic and restoring this most exceptional nation. We can’t just preach to the choir; the message of liberty and true hope must be understood by a larger audience” (emphasis mine).

No one from Fox News has disputed Gov. Palin’s account in any way, shape or form.

Despite the simple facts being what they are, a disturbing array of false stories have been published to the effect that “Fox News dumped Sarah Palin,” and that she is “irrelevant.” These phony stories have appeared in the usual left-wing publications such as Huffington Post.

Simply put, Fox News offered Gov. Palin a renewal contract. She declined it so she can bring her message to a larger audience. By staying with Fox, her contract would have precluded her conducting interviews with other networks, except with rare prior permission. Renewing the contract would have meant more preaching to the choir – because Fox News’ audience is Gov. Palin’s choir so to speak. Those who say that Fox “dumped her,” are telling lies, plain and simple.

Fox News like any other TV network lives and dies by ratings. If you lose your ratings, you lose your show and no TV network is going to keep you a day longer than they need you. Irrelevant people are not offered contract renewals and most often don’t even get to complete an existing contract. If Gov. Palin’s ratings had tanked and she had ceased to be relevant, Fox News would have cited poor ratings and the decision to not renew would have been theirs. But, Gov. Palin’s ratings were strong and Fox offered her the renewal. As previously reported and stated – she declined the renewal so she can broaden her reach to new markets.

Gov. Palin is highly relevant. Her potential reach to markets outside Fox News strikes fear and loathing in the hearts of her enemies, because she remains – as Stephen Bannon put it – an existential threat to the way they conduct business.

A vote for Obama is a vote to continue the failed policies of the past that have made us more reliant on foreign oil and the foreign regimes that supply it. Our energy policies affect so many areas of our lives, including where we send our sons and daughters to war. Our dependency on foreign regimes to supply our oil has enriched them and helped them subsidize terrorist activities. They have used our dependence on their oil as a weapon against us. There is no need for this when we have the resources here. No American should ever worry (rightly or wrongly) that our troops are in a war zone to protect oil interests. A more energy independent America will be a more prosperous and peaceful America.

For the record, there was nothing remotely racist in my use of the phrase "shuck and jive" – a phrase which many people have used, including Chris Matthews, Andrew Cuomo, and White House Press Secretary Jay Carney to name a few off the top of my head. In fact, Andrew Cuomo also used the phrase in reference to Barack Obama, and the fact that Mr. Cuomo and I used the phrase in relation to President Obama signifies nothing out of the ordinary. I would have used the exact same expression if I had been writing about President Carter, whose foreign policy rivaled Obama’s in its ineptitude, or about the Nixon administration, which was also famously rocked by a cover-up.

I’ve been known to use the phrase most often when chastising my daughter Piper to stop procrastinating and do her homework. As she is part Yup’ik Eskimo, I’m not sure if this term would be deemed offensive when it’s directed at her or if it would be considered benign as in the case of Chris Matthews’ use of it in reference to Rachel Maddow. Just to be careful, from now on I’ll avoid using it with Piper, and I would appreciate it if the media refrained from using words and phrases like igloo, Eskimo Pie, and “when hell freezes over,” as they might be considered offensive by my extended Alaska Native family.

The outrageously outraged reaction to this expression from perennial hypocrites like Chris Matthews has only made me laugh. Mr. Matthews, let me share with you my favorite Irish toast: “May we always be happy, and may our enemies always know it.”